Backyard ADUs ease housing crunch after Oregon fires

When the Almeda Fire tore through the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon in 2020, it destroyed thousands of homes and worsened an already tight rental market.

Artist and contractor Jacob Fry and his wife Elize were not burned out, but they wanted to help. They took out a loan to build two small rental units in their yard. Jacob said the goal was not income. "It was more about the community and needing infill housing for people that had been displaced," he said.

The units are called ADUs, or Accessory Dwelling Units. They are small, fully functional homes built on the same property as a main house, often in the backyard. Reforms in California now allow up to three modest-sized units on a single-family lot, provided they are rented long term and not used as short-term vacation rentals.

Dana Cuff, a professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA who helped pass the original laws, said the changes have had more impact than any other housing measure in the last 10 to 12 years. She said California now has 82,000 ADU building permits.

Cuff rents out her original home and lives in an ADU she built in her former backyard. "Sprawl has hit the wall now," she said. "You can't keep going out. So then, the beauty of that, from an environmental and a housing and an urban perspective, is that then you start building back in."

Some neighbors have raised concerns about parking, sewer and garbage services being stretched too thin. But the Frys saw a chance to add housing after the fires. Jacob joked that building an ADU is a test of marriage, but the project succeeded. The units have nearly paid for themselves even though the Frys rent them below market rates.

"We want things to be affordable so that we can get people in that might not otherwise get a decent situation with a decent landlord," Jacob said.

Elize Fry said both current tenants are young newlyweds in their early 20s. One tenant, Kaetriauna Bowser-Smith, lives in a 400-square-foot ADU with her husband and their nine-month-old daughter. She said the unit is perfect and that without it they would likely still be living with their parents.

In Los Angeles, 72-year-old Mona Field converted her garage into a two-bedroom ADU for herself. She now rents her main house to her daughter, Nadine Levyfield, her husband Charlie Marshak and their two children. The family shares meals and child care and says the arrangement works well.

Cuff said people must start imagining new ways of living together well.